Central heating grants but winter allowance frozen

There was mixed news for pensioners yesterday in the pre-budget report. Gordon Brown failed to offer any new help to those struggling to pay council tax bills or higher winter fuel bills, but promised £300m to install central heating for free in the poorest pensioner households.

Domestic gas and electricity bills have risen 40% over the past two years and pensioner groups had campaigned for an increase in the winter fuel allowance, now automatically paid to pensioner households. Pensioners' income rose 2.5% last year but they faced 20% increases in council tax bills and had hoped for measures to soften the blow.

The chancellor announced that he was extending the winter fuel allowance for the rest of this parliament, but did not increase the amounts paid. Pensioners will continue to receive £200 a year, or £300 if they are aged 80 or over.

Instead he said that the poorest group, those in receipt of pensions credit, would be offered free central heating for the first time. He also said all other pensioners would be entitled to a £300 grant to help with the cost of installing central heating for the first time. There would also be help with home insulation.

Joe Harris, general secretary of the National Pensioners Convention, the campaigning umbrella group, said the chancellor's move would do little for the 31,000 older people who died as a result of the cold each year.

"The chancellor's offer to guarantee the winter fuel allowance for the next few years without raising it in line with fuel prices means that pensioners will effectively be worse off. The freeze in the allowance is therefore a cut in income and won't help stop the annual winter cull of Britain's elderly."

Help the Aged said: "Pensioners will react with dismay and disbelief that Gordon Brown said absolutely nothing in his speech to ease the heavy burden of council tax. Unlike last year, when a general election was in the offing and the grey vote had to be appeased, it seems there will be no special payments for pensioner households, so many of our poorest older people will struggle to make ends meet.

"The chancellor is subjecting some of the most vulnerable older people to yet another year of inflation-busting bills while local services face funding cuts."

Pensioner Bill Jupp, 74, who lives with his wife Barbara, 70, in Old Marston, near Oxford was similarly unimpressed.

"This is the second biggest disappointment for pensioners in seven days. The Turner report (into pensions) did nothing for them, and this was exactly the same. The idea that pensioners on fixed incomes of £109 a week will be encouraged to go out and buy central heating, costing in excess of £2,000, because the government is offering a £300 grant is ridiculous. It just shows how out of touch they are," he said.